The Last Time, this Year.

Old tyres have to be one of the things I hate most, I dont think I ever thought about them before I got involved in farming, but now I hate them, and I must move hundreds every year.
We use them to hold the silage sheets down ontop of the silage clamps. Silage forms the main part of our cows diet during the winter when there is no grass growth in the UK. It is basically grass or other chopped herbage that is pickled in its own juice, for the spods it is anaerobic fermentation, that is without oxygen.
We dont make it all at once but throughout the growing season, and eachtime all the protective plastic sheets have to be rolled up and removed, another layer of grass added, rolled down to squeeze as much air out as possible and all the sheets replaced, followed by the dreaded tyres. These are full of rain water, dirt and the odd chunk of mouldy silage and are heavy, I dress up in waterproof trousers and top whatever the weather as even if the day is hot and sunny you get showered with dirty smelly water each time they hit the ground. Most importantly big gloves as the tyres also have sharp bits and occasionally a rat hiding in them!

This was one of our clamps today after we cut the last 10 acres of Lucerne yesterday and added it to the clamp, we finished putting tyres back on at 9pm as the contracters had been delayed with a sick cow at home, and didnt arrive till 6ish. It needs more tyres but we decided that we needed to eat and go to bed more, it has rained all day today so it may be tomorrows job.
This is the other clamp, you can see where we have already started to feed some of it, the cows are still out but will be stopping in at night soon.
This clamp doesnt need as many tyres as we have gravel bags and a better type of netting over it, when we have some spare money we will get more but tyres last forever and my labour is free!

Men are from Mars?

Since we have had such gorgeous weather this last week, I have worked my way round the house changing all the beds and towels, I try to do this when the drying conditions outside are good as we dont have a tumble dryer and it takes much longer on the airer.
I noticed that my husbands bath towel is completely worn out and actually falling to pieces, wheras mine, bought at the same time from the same shop and just a shade different in colour, is still fine.
We have the same number of showers, and they are always washed together and dried together, so why does his towel wear out ages before mine?
I suggested to him that he must rub harder than I do to dry himself and could he be more gentle on the towels!!! Needless to say this got a look of amazement.
I suppose I should rotate the towels taking turns to have each one to wear them out more evenly, but he has always used the darker shade, so I will probably just buy another dark one for him and carry on with mine.
Men are truly different from us, they just look similar on the outside.

Wish List

While we were in France this summer we finally went to explore the Ile de Noirmoutier, which is at the northern end of the Vendee and is reached by a big bridge or a causeway, we had a lovely time, picniced on a rocky beach, discovered that F is terrified of Limpets, but not what is so scary about them.

While we were mooching along a marina sampling the local ice creams we passed by a cafe with some gorgeous chairs outside. The style and the range of colours just called to me and I took a picture to remind me of them in case I was ever looking for some.

Much to Richards relief I spared everyone the embarrassment of me going over and looking for a manufacturers mark, I have a history of this sort of thing, and that was the end of that.

Till last week when I was looking through a magazine and saw the very same chairs pictured on the terrace of a house in Sweden, the article said the chairs were made by Fermob, a French company and widely available.

These can go on my wish list for when we have plenty of spare money......... unlikly ever to happen but till then I can look at the picture.

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Bad Girl

Occasionally we get a heifer that gets into the habit of helping herself to some milk from another cow, we take calves away from their mothers at 24hrs old and rear them in groups with milk from buckets with teats on.

Most of the time they drink the milk, are weaned at 12 weeks and never have any interest in milk again.

Currently we have two heifers who still take milk from any cow who will stand still for them and this is bad for the cow being milked, bad for the rumen of the cow drinking the milk and bad for us because the milk is not going on the tanker.

The only way to stop it is to fit the sucker with a spikey nose ring so that when she is "making up" to her milk supplier the spikes hurt the cows udder and she wont let the other cow suck. Its unfair but it has to be done. It doesnt hurt the cow wearing it as it is only tightened to hold it in place and doesnt pinch or break the skin, mind you they do spend a while trying to shake it off and when they get kicked by the cows they spike it hurts.

It is very effective and now we have one heifer in the milkers wearing one and one heifer in a mixed group of dry cows and young stock wearing one.

Nice colour eh?

Nearly Headless Nick

About 5 or 6 years ago I found a lump in my neck, after the initial panic I made an appointment to see my GP, the first told me he couldnt feel anything and the second that there was a definite lump, probably a benign cyst. Still I found myself in outpatients having it checked out within a couple of weeks.

Checking it out meant an ultrasound scan and a needle aspiration, basically they stick a needle straight through the front of your neck and into the cyst then suck out what they can, giving it a bit of a wiggle to make sure!!!!!

Its not exactly painful but a really horrible feeling.

Everything came back OK, just a benign thyroid cyst, not uncommon in middle aged women,though they were at pains to point out that this only meant the bits they had checked and who knew what could be going on round the corner.

Since then I have been back every 6 to 12 months for continued checking and testing and my very nice consultant has continued to recommend that I have the cyst and that side of the thyroid gland removed.

Finally I gave in and on Monday I was admitted for surgery. After an initial panic that they might not have a bed for me, all went smoothly, I was first on the list and down in theatre by 8.50 and unconscious by 9.15, back on the ward at 12.30ish and managed to escape home by 3pm the following day. Mind you that took me threatening to walk out before the ward staff got the paperwork sorted.

It was a lot less painful than I was expecting, I wasnt sick after the anaesthetic and the surgeon had dosed me up with local anaesthetic along the inscision.

I just feel bruised and like I have whiplash, a stiff neck. I have an inscision along my lower neck, which currently is covered by some steristrips, a single stitch with a bead at each end. I'm not looking forward to that coming out as they just cut one bead off and pull it through, but as my sister reminded me they have cut a lot of the small nerves to the skin so it wont feel as bad!!!!

Heres a pic of the neck yesterday, 48hrs post op.

I dont think it looks too bad.

Roaming

While we were in France my mobile phone uses french networks, and we seem to randomly change between them, sometimes while staying in the same place!
It doesnt seem to make much difference, I dont use the phone much on holiday, and then mostly for texting.
When we got back to Portsmouth and were heading back up the motorway I was hugely entertained to recieve the following message from O2, my network.
"Thankyou for travelling with o2 in Iceland"

Iceland!!!!! I was in France

Happy Holidays

Me(after a few drinks) and Izzy one evening on the campsite.

Gosh a whole month has passed since I last posted, in that time the school year has ended and we have been to france for two weeks.
I think it has rained nearly every day since the beginning of July and the farm is now looking green and lush, while we were away in France Richard had left instructions for the relief staff to buffer feed the milkers and young stock with bales of hay and silage while the drought ridden grass recovered, and certainly despite being up to their knees in grass the young stock seem very disappointed each day that nothing extra arrives.


Our trip to France was not without problems, or its start was, our ferry was booked for 7.30am on monday the 12th and we planned to drive down to stay overnight in Berkshire with my Ma. On sunday morning I popped over to Tescos to pick up a couple of last minute supplies only to find that the car would not accelerate above 40 mph, catastrophe! I came home and got Richard to have a test drive which confirmed that there was a problem. Being sunday we could not get the garage to look at it till monday to I phoned and dalayed the ferry by 24hrs.
Then we just sat and waited till monday morning when we dropped the car at the garage and hoped it would be a minor and easily fixable fault.
No such luck, it was the Turbo and could not be fixed in time.
So we were down to plan B, which was go in the LandRover!

Anyone who has seen our farm vehicle would not choose it as a reliable method of carrying 5 people, 5 bikes and all the junk we need for a 2 week stay, let alone a trip to the Vendee.

But it was that or dont go at all, so it got a quick power wash outside, hoover inside, change of oil and grease some bits underneath. Then we loaded it up and set off to Grannys house..... at a steady 60 mph. I dont think I have ever driven that journey quite so slowly.
Richard decided that given the Landies advanced age, 20 yrs, and the fact that normally it does about 3000 miles a year, we had better take it easy. Also no radio and the roof leaks when it rains. Off to the beach for a picnic on the Isle de Noirmoutier.

But we made it, the LR did us proud and covered all 1400 miles with no problems at all, in fact it was a real handy place to dry swimming towels and cossies and started quite a few conversations on the campsites and in the various carparks we used.

It also makes a good drying rack.

We had a lovely holiday, mostly the sun shone, we ate and drank far too much and I spent many happy hours lying on the beach reading my way through the small library I took with us.

Routine maintenance.

The children swam and played in the pools, waterslides and even in the cold cold sea, we all rode our bikes, some further than others, and generally had a great time.

Really my only complaint was how long the travelling took us.